January 7, 2013

Guillermo Del Toro seems to have a lot of projects thrown at him. He took over the Blade franchise from Stephen Norrington, took on The Hobbit before exiting over production delays and made Pacific Rim instead. He was also in the mix for Dawn of The Planet of The Apes before Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) was hired. He revealed to ThePlaylist that he was indeed asked about being interested in directing Star Wars but had to turn it down over other projects. Del toro mentions that as fan he would have loved to see Brad Bird tackle it. Only thing is that Bird is busy with his own original sci-fi project 1952 that has George Clooney mentioned as being interested in the lead.

“We got one phone call to my agent saying, ‘Is Guillermo interested?’ ” he revealed saying, “And basically I have so much stuff already of my own, and I’m pursuing stuff that I’m generating already…” that he turned it down. “It was just a phone call, it didn’t go past that, it was very nice to be asked, but believe it or not, I’m busy enough.”“As a geek, I would have loved to see Brad Bird take it.”

In the early days of the announcement of LucasFilm being bought by Disney and a new trilogy was mentioned. During that time a bunch of possible details were rolling out from different sources. One key rumor being that new trilogy would focus on a new female Skywalker. Giving the impression that Mara Jade (Luke's eventual wife) or Jaina Skywalker Solo could be possible canon candidates. Recently, Lucas mentioned that the books could end up being used for the films so it's possible these characters could find their way into the new films. However, a reputable source has given new life to that speculation with a recent tweet from SlashFilm's Peter.

Who said the lead character in Star Wars Episode VII is going to be a male star? :)